Welcome to the first weekend of summer! Although meteorologists will argue the point (the summer solstice isn't until June 21, over three weeks away), Memorial Day weekend has become the de facto start of the summer season. And while it's not quite time to stop the mail, lock up the house, and throw the family in the car to head for the beach, that feeling is certainly in the air. Well...it's always in the air here in San Diego, where it's summer all year long and the beach is just a few miles to the left.
Yesterday I took another in my series of walks, this time all the way to Hillcrest and back (about 4.8 miles). As I was walking down Park Boulevard (and for you non-San Diegans, yes...it's as lovely as it sounds), I passed a group of children playing near Balboa Park. They all had tie-dyed shirts on, so they were part of some bigger group doing some kind of Saturday morning outing. Most of the kids were grouped together, listening to the adult chaperones, but there was one little girl--about 6 or 7, I'd guess--who was wearing a koala bear backpack and holding a stuffed elephant. And she was flying around the periphery of the group, trying her best to make that elephant fly. She was definitely marching--or running--to the beat of a different drummer. And I envied her freedom.
And that--to me at least--is the essence of summer: Being a kid and letting it all hang out. Running barefoot through the park, ignoring everyone else, lost in your own world of flying stuffed elephants and koala bears on your back. I'm sure she was eventually reined in. I'm sure she'll grow up and become like the rest of us, where summer--for the most part--is just another three months on the calendar. But for that brief moment, she was a kid doing her thing and grabbing the freedom that summer gives you, especially at that age: No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks.
Thanks for sharing this nice moment with us, Gary!
Posted by: Pam | May 30, 2011 at 02:54 AM